Comrades, we have to be comfortable calling capitalists “larcenists/thieves/robers/stealers” so folks actually get the problem.
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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I'd be doing pickup truck stuff. I'm already that guy to my friends, family, and coworkers. Dump runs, moving, transporting large purchases like furniture, or bulk purchases like potting soil. Hell, sometimes I get free wood from trees cut down to drag home, split, and give away free to the neighbors. I've definitely thought to myself before that with a salary and a gas budget I'd be content with just doing that all the time.
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But nobody would be motivated to work if they grow up in a world where the broken ppl fixed everything so nobody becomes broken enough for their trauma to motivate them to obsessively fix the things that caused their trauma! We'd all die! Civilization would collapse! We need to traumatize ppl so they'd have ambition.
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The problem is more definitional than anything else.
The basic proposition is to do valuable work, as others define value, in exchange for whatever you consider equivalent compensation.
If others don't see value in alternative ways of operating, you can help define it for them. Map any activity to either money made, money saved, or time saved, or maintenance avoided/automated and just watch how the tone of those "stick to your job description" conversations change.
As soon as you learn to put what matters to you in terms that matter to others, this problem is a whole lot easier to solve.
The guy obsessed with driving a bus or unclogging pipes isn't necessarily the same guy who can defend the value of those tasks. The profit motive redirects a lot of effort away from the task that needs doing to convincing others the task needs doing and for a living wage. But perhaps every imagined economic model will have a Convincing Stage. That could still be streamlined by removing the wage debate and guaranteeing everyone a livelihood.
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@Five this is fascinating. I’m sure I’m not alone in this: even just the internal bureaucracy and culture within a company suppresses (smothers) people, and, in some cases, deliberately prevents them from doing what they’re best at. I’m sure the theoretical free plumber you mentioned would be seen as a threat to the livelihoods of 50 different hedge fund backed outfits here in Las Vegas (Goettl for example…🖕you Goettl).
I'm a pipefitter and I can guarantee all my peers would do if not a wage slave is percocets. Definitely not electively fixing pipes.
greed corruption uneducated lazy. if all crimes are legal, there's nothing stopping an easy fix. lawyers run cover by dragging things out for fees. the mad plumber would work for free if he didn't have bills to pay.
Great insight.